21st Century cemeteries mostly require stones to be flat with the ground and uniform in size to allow only a name and birth/death dates. However, this sign outside Andrews, Texas offers a potential solution for communities everywhere. A single stone the size of the Vietnam Memorial Wall telling everything the people in the cemetery believed would be a huge benefit.
Hi readers:
The grave markers depicted here are located in the Olathe, Kansas, Desoto, Kansas and Lawrence, Kansas [Oak Hill] cemeteries. Lawrence is probably best remembered for the Quantrill raid and massacre of the men and boys of the town slaughtered by Quantrill’s Irregulars during the Civil War. The town was burned to the ground and most of those killed are buried in the Oak Hill Cemetery in a mass grave.
Hand signs and finger signs decorate the surface of a lot of gravestones around here. Pointing upward, sideways, down fingers, etc. I’m guessing some might be secret society signs of one sort or another. However, Jeanne tells me this one is a ‘deaf person’ sign.
This stone and the one below have been selected by geographers to serve a dual-purpose. Initially they both merely marked the location of buried telephone cables, as noted on the orange tape. But later circumstance conspired to make them useful as markers for human burial locations as well.
Limestone or marble markers are probably inexpensive, but they are prone to become unreadable in a century, century-and-a-half. The stone dissolves in acid rain, accumulates lichens and moss, and break more easily than granite, steel, or wood of most types. This is unworthy of concern unless the people placing the stone intend the grave to be identifiable over a period longer than a few decades.
A person who went through life being called by the name, King David Bookout, probably won’t object to large granite stone sitting above him a few centuries afterward. Nothing any stranger says while looking at the stone generations later is likely to be original. It all got said while he was alive.
Patricia Ann evidently played the oud or sitar during her life and someone considered it enough a part of her to be noted on the stone. The name Teachout would be less intriguing if the grave were located further from that of King David Bookout. A Bookout buried 50-100 feet from a Teachout seems more coincidence than needed in death.
Finding a purpose in death isn’t necessarily easier than finding a worthy one in life. Vernon Robert Phillips elected to use his to advertise Harley Davidson Motorcycles.
This touching marker manages to convey the anguish of the surviving family. Probably it’s actually what graveyards and gravestones are all about, or at least something valid they are about.
Here’s an example of what happens to limestone when it’s utilized as burial marking material. Fortunately there’s nothing on the stone to suggest anything was worth remembering about Wheeler Green anyway.
Another emotional demonstration of whatever causes human beings to want grave markers and graves as a piece of their lives.
Sharon Snow Fogarty is evidently still alive, but she knows how she wants to be remembered: “She never met an animal she didn’t like.”
The elaborate grave-marker phenomenon spans cultural boundaries.
If those people killed in the Quantrill raid had survived they might have accomplished great things. Some might have been able to be part of the Wounded Knee incident. As the song says, “Only the good die young.”
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 
I find this fascinating. Always did like to speculate on what people leave behind. You would love my local parish cemetery – sometimes people of dubious character are buried there, and some have marble cans of beer, or marble packs of cigarettes, over their grave. Now they don’t just do a stone – you can fill up the entire 6×4 plot with marble memorials. It’s the type of funeral you wouldn’t want to crash, unless you have an achin desire to be the next one buried.
heretherebespiders: You’ve described the kind of cemetery I love best. Gracias, J
Thank you for the entertaining and enlightening tour. I’m not going to have a marker or a grave but if I planned on it I’d have a huge marker filled with a bunch of outright lies about how great I was and the astonishing things I did. There’s no reason to limit my potential in death, no reason not to be all I can be and quite a bit more. The Harley Davidson advertisement inspired me.
elroyjones: I don’t wish to be one to kiss and tell, but I’d love to have the names of all my consorts through the decades on my stone if I had a stone, which I’d be damned unhappy to discover I did. But if I did it would be a big stone, or they’d have to write small. By now so many of them are dead, anyway, in all likelihood, maybe they could add the names of some up and coming porn stars or other state-of-the-art celebrities with names on the tips of every tongue. Make a croud pleaser of it. Gracias, J
hahahahahahahahaha! Excellent idea!
Thinking outside the casket-like box, I am. Gracias, J
Sometimes I encounter an amazing gravestone while exploring an old, cemetary. Among the best are the post-Civil War era markers. I’m not impressed with the new, flush, ground-level stones in modern cemetaries. Everything is all neat and tidy for the convenience of the groundskeepers.
swabby: Yeah, I don’t like them much, either, but I can visualize a time in the future where they’ll make useful building stones. Gracias, J
Hi Old Jules, It is interesting you are photographing headstones and Portales is squabbling over some dead or dieing trees in the cemetery. Seams life goes in cycles. Good to being reading your posts again. Mary
Hi Mary: I thought all those trees died of dutch elm disease 50 years ago. Maybe different trees dying now, I reckons. Gracias, J
Hi Old Jules, They survived according to the local who have stayed there. They are 15-20 feet taller than I remember. If you want to see photos check out Old Portales Days on facebook. Some trees were just severely pruned. Maybe they will come out soon. They stopped the pruning and are waiting for a tree doctor to tell them which ones can be pruned and save and which ones have to go. The elm beatles I would have thought would have damaged them as much as the drought. Maybe they didn’t get either the dutch elm disease or the beatles. Blessings, Mary
Thanks Mary. J
About the head stone, if you wanted one, which you don’t. Would be you bragging listing all those names? chuckle.
Mary: If the shoe fits I’ll walk a mile in it. Gracias, J
Great answer. Blessings, M.
Re the hand signs on graves. The hand sign with the pinkie and index fingers pointed UP is the sign for the Baphomet, an ancient evil god similar to Satan-Lucifer. You DO know that Oklahoma City is installing a statue of Baphomet in their downtown area, don’t you? Jules, what’s going on now is a takeover by the secret societies – they are finally large enough in population to pull it off. You’ll find out what I’m saying is true when we get “marshall law.”
Hi Cynthia. I’ll confess to not knowing anything about Oklahoma City if I can avoid it. If they want a statue to someone-or-other it’s okay by me so long as they don’t try putting one of me up in the jailhouse. Gracias, J
Hi Old Jules,
I accidentally came across to this webpage and I would like to make some clarifications to Cynthia’s regarding to hand signs on graves. The hand sign depicts pinkie and index fingers pointed UP and plus, thumb EXTENDED actually meant in a represent of “I Love You” in American Sign Language (ASL). Google it if you would like.
We have a very strong deaf community right here in Olathe, KS. We offer deaf school (Kansas School for the Deaf) and deaf organizations (Olathe Deaf Club and Deaf Cultural Center). Check out our busy events at http://www.olathedeafclub.com (click on “Upcoming Events” link). You are more than welcome to visit us.
Lastly, we recognized the grave of Rebecca A. Motes Buchanan who was deaf and grew up in the deaf community. “I Love You” sign in ASL was etched on her memorial headstone to let others know that she was deaf.
Hope this helps.
Harry Jr.
Hi Old Jules,
I accidentally came across to this webpage and I would like to make some clarifications to Cynthia’s July 6, 2014 posting regarding to hand signs on graves. The hand sign depicts pinkie and index fingers pointed UP and plus, thumb EXTENDED actually meant in a represent of “I Love You” in American Sign Language (ASL). Google it if you would like.
We have a very strong deaf community right here in Olathe, KS. We offer deaf school (Kansas School for the Deaf) and deaf organizations (Olathe Deaf Club and Deaf Cultural Center). Check out our busy events at http://www.olathedeafclub.com (click on “Upcoming Events” link). You are more than welcome to visit us.
Lastly, we recognized the grave of Rebecca A. Motes Buchanan who was deaf and grew up in the deaf community. “I Love You” sign in ASL was etched on her memorial headstone to let others know that she was deaf.
Hope this helps.
Harry Jr.